SSW and I launched the new Portland Pinball Map website last night. The site rules, and everyone should please start using it. The old map is toast, and you won’t be cool anymore if you continue to use it.

This new site has many fantastic search functions! And you can add comments on machines. And you can add and remove machines from locations. And you can put your scores next to machines, so we can track bounties and stuff. And you can do so much more!

I started a thread on it on the message board, so please write stuff on the subject in there or here. I hope you all find the website to be useful, and I hope you all use it a lot.

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In also news, last night we inducted three new members: Scoop (long time coming!), Bumpers, and Mystery! That brings our member total to 34. And since Scoop and Bumpers are females, that brings our total in that category to five? I don’t know, but I think so. Progress is progress.It was a fun induction ceremony - beer was swilled and spilled, tiaras were worn, penis-shaped balloons were hoisted to the heavens, and some really weird belts were worn.

Hopefully I’ll get photos of all our most recent adds (dropshot, revtest, videomode, and the three most new, and everyone else still missing) so that I can put their faces onto the profile page.

If anyone has photos from last night, please gimme one or more, and I’ll add them to this post.

Another Shorty’s come and gone! The underwater clown-themed hot dog bar hosted their 11th annual tournament this past weekend. We took the mega-van up to Seattle, with others taking cars and trains… all for one day of practice on their machines, and one day of competition. I think we had 14 or so from CFF? Plus friends from Portland. The machines played nice, 117 people entered, including three folks from IFPA’s top ten, plus a bunch of other rippers. Not to be too negative, but the tournament itself is mostly excruciating and run like lousy (cramped space, then empty machines for hours as we all sit around waiting for the organizers to figure out our next rounds, single game rounds, etc.). Next time we’ll be bringing dominoes to help fill out the hours. That said, it’s no doubt a fun time. It’s great to connect with others in the pinball world, and especially, to see how the rippers play. Since the trip, our message board has been filled with lively strategy discussion.

As usual, we managed to piss off a few wankers. One dude apparently burned one of our stickers, and so was dowsed with water. Holy crap! In the tournament the next day he experienced total karmic payback, with Gorgar, the unofficial God of Pinball, delivering a shocking slam tilt on Addam’s right when the dude was preparing to take a victory lap. Take that!

I ranked highest in CFF in the tournament - around 16th or so, I believe - which was a bit disappointing for us all. We’ve shown better in the past. But it is what it is - most of all, it’s fun to compete. Our next trip up to Seattle will be for the 2nd Annual NW Pinball Expo (June, most likely). Eden from the Vancouver Regional Pinball Association told me about his grand plans for that show’s tournament, and it sounds like it’s going to be killer. It was run well last year (well, this year, still), and from the sound of it, 2009’s will be even better (extra prizes, a supplementary Electro-Mechanical tourney, etc.). The expo is supposed be larger, too (meaning, more machines to play, plus more speakers).

Eric (EKH) did best of our Portland crew (9th or so). He even took out Keith Elwin (ranked #1 in the world) - on a barfbag Revenge from Mars. Eric’s organizing the upcoming Slabtown tournament in NW Portland. November 20th.

This tournament’s going to be awesome. Make sure to get there on time, lazies!

Speaking of tournaments! To make up for the lack of Taxi Tuesday’s lately, DropShot threw together a tournament at Ship Ahoy last night. $5 entry. For a last minute tourney, we had a fine field - ten entered. Danny Backglass, sporting a slick new H-cut, took home the pot. We’re hoping to do something like this on a weekly basis. Not everyone can make the bi-weekly meetings (including DannyB, most unfortunately), and so we’re making more efforts to fill in the time with some more events. Plus, we need more experience with competition! I’ll try to keep the calendar up to date.

In conclusion, check out the pumpkin I carved!!

You deeply want to be like this kid.

Three CFF members have been on a Grand Champion Raid of Portland establishments recently.

Our newest member, Drop Shot, made it his goal to GC ten machines in ten days. He completed his megatask list yesterday: Elvira and the Party Monsters, Who Dunnitt, Medieval Madness (twice), Taxi, Scared Stiff, Star Trek, Indiana Jones (Stern), Spiderman, Dark Knight, and Monster Bash. Congratulations Drop Shot. You have serious skills. I am shaken and awed.

DDT has also been completely ripping some Pins this month. In the last 11 days, he has Grand Champed so many machines that he can’t even keep track any more.

Most notable, however, was the recent accomplishment of Danny Backglass. Backglass Grand Champed FIVE MACHINES yesterday. He put up freakishly high scores on Addams Family, exhausted hero mode on Spiderman, spit-shined Elvira and the Party Monsters, battled a crippled Fish Tales and, in one of the finest examples of Pinflippery I have ever witnessed, Backglass doubled the Grand Champion on Black Knight 2000 in a 40 minute Battle Royale against the Knight.

The Black Knight might be feeling a little saddlesore today, because Backglass completely ripped it a new asshole. In 20 years of playing BK2K, Danny achieved his highest score ever by pounding out 37,466,370 points. I challenge anyone to beat this score, it will take a recessive autistic gene lodged somewhere in your DNA to do it.

You deeply want to be like this kid.

8 PM the Alleyway Bartopia 2415 NE Alberta.

I propose we meet here, but let the discussion begin. If that’s not happening, I’m still planning to rock tournament land and win my dues for the evening.

In other news:

Green Dragon now has 4 machines and will be getting a 5th ASAP. MB, Batman, Star Wars, and Arabian Nights. We have GC on 2 of the 4 machines but there are some familiar competitors poking their noses where they don’t belong (the backglass…)– VAN, OOO, POO to name a few. Let’s take back the night and support both these places being active and getting more pins!

I know this schedule could interfere with the usual 10-2 meeting schedule, so please comment either in the comments section of this post, or the events section of the message board. thanks!

John Combo had an on-the-job accident a lil’ while ago, and he ended up with all kinds of stuff broken in his leg, plus… no more job! Thanks jerks. So we’re holding a benefit show to help him with medical bills.

It’s taking place this Thursday, Oct. 9, at Ground Kontrol. There will be bands, a DJ, and lots of pinball! Everything helps, so please come on by. And tell your friends. It will be a fun show, and it’s for a good cause.

Any CFF’er could’ve taken those chomos with one hand. Puh-leez.

Thoughts on The Standard– wicked strong wicked cheap drinks. major plus. limpwristed midieval madness– yuck. none of the games felt *great* though slingshot shredded on theater and i had a fun game on there where i barely tried to trap the ball and was still looping shots. good times.

Thoughts on a member who shall not be named peeing in the bushes: our territory is marked. consider those bushes the property of CFfucknF! CFF’s urine: the initials on the backglass of the world.

We need to hold another tournament soon. How about the Friday or Saturday after next. Location? Format?

BB

After the thumps of the last battle drums faded into the dank marshland of SE Portland, and the battle smoke wafted away into the Willamette Valley, and a few battle-hardened birds tentatively chirruped to celebrate the dawning of a new day, I wiped the blood from my Ray Bans and saw standing tall and proud and also a little weary on a pile of rotting corpses the one victor… or five, or however many we had actually playing - plus everyone else showing support - the Crazy Flipper Fingers!

When we arrived, Getaway was shorting out, and so Tilt almost cancelled the pinball portion of the rumble in exchange for an all out West Side Story synchronized fake stab-off in the alley behind the Good Foot. But I crawled underneath the machines and switched around a bunch of plugs and stuff, and that sort of made things better (sorry, Bounceback… even though I can’t be held responsible for the game shutting off right as you started running your modes - I still apologize.  I fixed it even more after that.).

OOO, while they may not wear cool t-shirts like us, or have a sweet battle cry, represented in good form. They wanked big time about Fastbreak though (man, shut up and play, I say!). So we appeased them and nixed it from the line-up. We played five on five, two vs two (and one vs one) on three machines, and played each one twice. 5 points awarded for 1st place, 3 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd, and 0 for 4th. I know, with that scoring system it was technically not “two vs two”- more like every person for themselves. But anyway, after we’d all played each game twice, the calculators emerged and we crunched those numbers like the heroes we are, and, as I mentioned above, CFF emerged victorious.

My personal impressions: totally fun. It went pretty smoothly, we got to play a lot of pinball, and we all had some good games. Indy 500 is rad, and I got over 1 billion on it for a 1st place score. I’m writing this post, so I can talk about myself like that. Um, what else? I don’t know.

The battle may be over, but the war still rages on inside our brains. Nay, I doubt this is the last we’ve seen of OOO.

Additionally, if there are any other tuff clubs in Portland who want to rumble, let’s have it, fuckers.

I don’t think anyone took pictures. Sorry.

While Portland is rife with pinball maniacs, CFF is still mostly a lone monster when it comes to organized play. So our brawl pool is more like a blow-up kiddy pool, if you know what I mean. Triple O (Out of Order) is one group whose initials we see here and there in town. They have turf, apparently (Beulahland?), and we have battled them long ago in the time before weblog posts. But oh shit! Tilt and OOO’s Chris recently got into a heated argument about their respective gangs, but before it erupted into all out face-stabbing the two decided that our differences would be best settled in a good ol’ pinbrawl.

So tomorrow we’re battling against them at Good Foot (Stark and 28th-ish), 8pm. It will be five on five. Ruleset still to be finalized, but it will definitely be some sort of points or elimination to the death killmatch! So prepare to die, somebody.

Which team has the ace ‘ballers? Who can walk the walk that they talk about walking? Who gets totally psyched out in competition and flails around wildly and then starts crying? Whose initials have more variety? Which gang has a super cool website that’s updated all the time? Who is better at photoshop, ROM or ORBIT? Who the hell is in Triple O anyway? These questions, and maybe more, will be answered tomorrow!

Check the message board post for serious discussion about tomorrow’s event!

Random Rippers descended on last sunday’s meeting and raged, each in their own way. Who were they all? Searching will leave you mostly empty-handed, or at least on a wild goose-chase. We met Emily and her companion, workin’ a few games of bash, ASN and Fred, one-ball tournament champions in their own right, and long-lost member Tons O’ Fun (who bounceback drunkenly quarter-blocked at the meeting, thinking a crazy and powerful hobo was dipping into the kitty… bounceback was in a special place last night, all around.) But who was that girl in red abusing Elvira around the time the meeting got rolling? Reputedly a local of the Ship and C-Bar, everyone thought everyone knew her until she bailed and everyone asked everyone else. And what about you, late night attendee in a wrestling jersey, closing down the bar and wondering how good you have to be to earn a shirt? you seemed angry at that M.Madness, and i can’t blame you. Them flippers were weak, that playfield was dirty, and everything was leaning left. 

Or maybe it was just bounceback, crooked in general– from losing multiple mini-tournaments and a crucial one-handed team slay-off, all in all depleting his personal funds by $6, to drooling on himself, talking through all the games, and mocking DDT’s awesome trackie, the mancub just couldn’t keep shit straight last night. 

But all in all, fun was had, no? Thanks to everyone who showed up. If you haven’t already, sign up for the message board, introduce yourself, and post your thoughts, complaints, fantasies, and escapades with pinball of late. Oh my god this will go on the internet. 

BB

Today being the one-week anniversary of the one ball tournament, it’s about freakin’ time I posted the results, so here they are:

After two rounds, the cumulative points leaders were ASN and ROM tied with 8 points. A final, one-ball playoff revealed Aaron to be the champion on the evening, putting Ryan in second, and leaving Jacob Chandler unsupervised  to do what he pleases as bronze medalist.

Our first tournament, organized on short notice and minimally publicized, drew 22 solid competitors and generated around $70 bones to be divided up between winners,  with almost $10 extra scrill tipped out to the bartenders who tolerated the presence of our monster white board and agonized pacing as the final scores came down to the wire.

The machines (Spiderman, Monster Bash, Indiana Jones 1, Midieval Madness, and Whirlwind,) all played great with the exception of a mysterious reset on whirlwind during Jacob’s first round which probably wasn’t a slam tilt and which unfortunately cut him down at 4 mil, which held out to win the round on that machine.

With the exception of a few breakout scores, results were close on all machines, proving a couple of things: One, there are a lot of good ballers in portland, almost any of whom could rise to the occasion on any given day. Two, almost all of us do way too little with our average first ball! Watching the psychological spasms of most players coming to grips with the pressure of having one ball and only one ball to work with and build their strategy around was very interesting indeed. Several players buckled under the pressure, declared they “weren’t feelin’ it,” and drained away into the night after their first round entries. Given that 15 points were possible in each round, for a total of 30 possible points, the fact that the winners managed only 7-8 points shows just how level the playing field was. True to form the champs were among the most focused and consistent players around, day in and day out, but hopefully this motivates everyone who came (and everyone who thought about it but didn’t, or couldn’t make it,) to up their game and show up next time, knowing they could themselves take home the pride, glory, and $20 or so these massively great warriors earned.

We will be organizing another tournament next month, so please sign up for the board and leave some feedback about suggested locations, time/date, and format for the tournament. We could do a points system as before, head to head elimination games, or something completely different.

Thanks to everyone who played and helped, and special thanks to the Alleyway Cafe for hosting!

Bounceback